Otmar is feeling the annoying presence of hindsight after the team decided not to instigate team orders for Sergio Perez to move from Ocon’s way.

Now Otmar is wishing the team had made such a call and at least have given the young driver and fighting chance at taking Ricciardo.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing because you have more information,”Szafnauer Explained.

“What I would have done is perhaps swap them earlier – just after the Ferraris pitted. Do it then and it is easy.

“You can get your tyres back up to temperature and there is no risk from behind. Then, if it doesn’t happen, you still have time to swap back. We didn’t do that, we started discussing it a bit late and then after it was too late.”

When asked whether the team considered swapping the drivers, Otmar said they had considered it, but the significant loss in tyre temperature was not worth the switch.

“We contemplated swapping them to give them a go, but there are a lot of things that happen when you swap,” Otmar continued.

“You lose time when you swap, but more importantly, you lose tyre temperature – and tyre temperature is really critical.”

“So if you do that, you are not back up to speed straight away. We had the Ferraris charging, so there are ifs, ands and buts. Looking at it, we will analyse it. But had we swapped them I don’t think Esteban would have got by him.”